


Running up that road

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Series: Sybil and Havelock in the Ramtops [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Camping, Gen, Teenagers, The Ramtops, This one goes with more New Orleans Genua
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: In which a Four Yorkshiremen bit fails, a tent pitched in the rain does not, and tea is made on top of a mountain
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin & Havelock Vetinari
Series: Sybil and Havelock in the Ramtops [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959418
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Running up that road

They were crossing a river. The air swarmed with midges. Sybil Deidre Olgivanna Ramkin spat several of them out of her mouth.

“This is bad,” she said. “There’s a lot of standing water this month.”

Havelock Vetinari, seeing the midges that had landed on him disappear against the black fabric of his shirt, began to laugh. “In Genua—“ he began, and Sybil sighed, “we’ve got sixty species of mosquito and they’re quarter the size of your fist. The bites swell up even if you don’t look at them.”

“What does looking at them have to do with it?”

“They’re _mosquito bites_. They kill livestock through blood loss and exhaustion and cause anemia and there’s a half dozen diseases they can transmit to humans, some of them deadly.”

Sybil folded her arms. “Then you should know that we should keep moving.”

“For a few midges? Look at how the light fails to glint off the muddy waters, how inelegantly the creek winds through the woods…”

“It’s not a creek. A creek is saltwater.”

“What?” Havelock said, grinning.

“It's the gap between bits of land on the sea. Didn’t you know that?”

“No!” It was one of the most delighted noes that Sybil had ever heard.

“Let’s keep going.”

“You are relentless.”

“I’m being bitten by flies.”

“Midges.”

“Midges ARE flies.”

They set off again, Vetinari enthusiastically taking the lead.

Sybil had been watching him walk. There was something slightly odd about it, like he was thinking about every step. It was graceful, and she had no doubt that he could hide that his natural gait was turned out by a couple of degrees or that his feet, currently in soft leather boots, wanted to flop into being half-pointed when he picked them up. Now, after a few hours of walking he was slowing down and pausing frequently, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to find relief and stability. 

Turning a corner, the trail opened out onto a cliff where the mountain dropped away to a sheer edifice.

“Why is there a railing on the edge of this cliff?” Havelock asked scornfully, holding onto it.

“It’s not that unusual. Carts come through here. It’s what’s considered a road in the Ramtops.”

“I once fell off a cliff and landed on a cactus. That wasn’t in Genua, obviously, but it did happen. There were forty spines stuck in me. I counted them when I was pulling them out.”

“Of course you did.” Sybil stared at the fir trees at the bottom of the cliff.

“It was on a desert island, pretty far rimward of the coast.”

“I always thought it was ‘deserted’ island. As in an island without any people.”

“A deserted island would be an island that used to have people.”

“So a desert island wouldn’t have any fresh water, but it might have a creek if the island was big enough.”

“You can go ahead of me,” Vetinari said, still holding onto the railing. “I’m not being competitive.”

Sybil stepped out onto the trail ahead and continued up the mountain. She heard Havelock falling behind, but she didn’t turn around until she reached a fallen tree at which point she took off her rucksack, and then put it on backwards so she was carrying it in front of her and said “Come here. I want to carry you.”

“On your back?”

“I want to. Get up here.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got the tent.”

“Just do it.”

Havelock climbed onto Sybil’s back, reaching over her shoulders to hold onto the top of her rucksack and she looped her arms under his legs. Even carrying the tent, he seemed to weigh almost nothing.

“You’re sweating,” he said.

“It’s humid.”

“In Genua it’s often one hundred percent humidity.”

After some time it began to rain.

“There was a place I was thinking of up here, but it looks like we should keep going until we find a cave.”

“We shouldn’t be looking for somewhere we don’t know exists.”

“The tent will get soaked if we try to put it up in this weather.”

“I can build a shelter over where we’re going to put it up so it won’t get soaked before we can get the tarp up.”

“What about a fire?”

“In Genua—“

“I’m putting you down.”

“Great.”

Havelock dropped lightly to the earth. “In Genua it rains three times as much as it does in Ankh-Morpork. I’m brilliant at making a fire in the rain.”

“The spot is just above the treeline, through here.” Sybil stepped off the path and headed off through the trees. On the other side was an area of gently sloping land that began to rise sharply a few meters further up hill.

Havelock surveyed the site and then dove back into the trees to drag out wet branches to build a lean-to.

“Want any help?”

“Yes, pull out the tarp and put any dry wood you can find under it for the fire.”

Havelock covered the lean-to in large-fronded ferns and then pitched the tent underneath it.

“So, obviously if you’re building a fire in the rain,” he said, moving the wood from under the tarp to under the lean-to. “You need to have the wood set up to keep the kindling dry. Once the fire’s strong enough it will evaporate the water out of the wood, so it just has to be the inside that’s kept dry.”

Soon there was a fire blazing in spite of being dribbled on by the heavens.

“I’m going to tie the food up because there are animals,” Sybil said.

“Oh yes, animals up here. Such a threat. You’ve never had to check your shoes for scorpions.”

Rain was running down Sybil’s face. “Look, Havelock, I love you, but you’re being really annoying. I spend ninety percent of my time in an interminably boring school being taught thirty-seven formal table settings and infinitesimal gradations of what to wear when, and admittedly some of it has been extremely useful, but I would give anything to wander the world like you have. To have danger alongside etiquette.”

Havelock handed her the glass bottle of goat’s milk they had picked up along the way. “You can have the rest of this.”

Sybil saw him poking cautiously at his slightly swollen knees.

“Has all this been displaced complaining?”

“No. I thought I was being entertaining. Clearly I have misjudged.”

“Are you alright, besides physically, I mean?”

“Oh, that’s a hell of a question. Better for being here with you, I’d say.”

“Good.”

There was a thunderstorm that night and it seemed to be directly overhead. The ground shook for hours.

Crawling out of the tent in the morning, Havelock built the fire up again and heated water for tea. He timed when to make Sybil’s cup so that it was the right temperature when she woke up.

“You’re a marvel,” she said, taking the cup.

“No I’m not, I’m annoying.”

Sybil’s smile collapsed like the lean-to had when Havelock had pulled away the supports. “People tell you that a lot?”

“I annoy people a lot. It’s fine. I’d rather know.”

“You can’t tell?”

“Of course I can tell, but you get more information from knowing what people are willing to say they’re annoyed by.”

“I often… cannot tell… and people don’t tell me because I am… nice. They're like, oh Sybil, she's so sweet, she just doesn't know any better, let's avoid her.”

Havelock looked into the fire. “Well, if you ever manage to annoy me, I promise let you know.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

Havelock took a sip of his tea luxuriantly. “Maybe it is.”

“I think we should swap boots,” she suggested.

“What?”

“I think we wear the same shoe size.” Sybil had proper hiking boots that went above the ankle and laced tightly.

“That’s kind of…”

“We’re all covered in each other’s sweat anyway.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And your boots are better at keeping the water out and everywhere is kind of flooded.”

“Flooded? You call a few puddles flooded? In Genua people would take boats down the streets and even that wasn’t really flooding.”

“Do you mean canals?”

“I said streets, didn’t I?”

Sybil set down her tea and disappeared into the trees. She returned with what was clearly a three or four year old tree with the branches stripped off. “I made you a staff.”

“Did you kill a baby tree for me? I'm touched.”

They spent most of the weeks between terms that year in the mountains, buying food from farmers and wondering how long it would be before there was a hole torn in the thin canvas of the tent from haphazardly shoving it into backpacks.


End file.
